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The better part of 2013

Just about every person I talk to had a pretty rough 2013 and they’d just like to put it behind them and are hoping for a better year in 2014. I certainly had a challenging year and I could rant, but I’d rather attempt to highlight the most memorable moments of 2013.

I got out a bit and was lucky enough to see some of my favorite bands and entertainment. In February I watched the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rodriguez. I got covered in colour during the We Are One (Holy One) colour festival and thoroughly enjoyed my first Roller Derby. Drove out to Pretoria to a Lego fair which inspired me to start working on a minifigure installation. I painfully pedaled my way through the Joburg city one night at Critical Mass.

I’d like to remember the people we lost and celebrate their life. From our president Nelson Mandela, to celebrities like Paul Walker and everyone’s favorite gangster James Gandolfini. You were inspirational and you will be missed.

RIP

James Gandolfini

This year we used the word selfie more times than we probably should have, and all due to the smashing uptake of Instagram, currently my favorite social network. Coca-Cola’s Share-a-Coke campaign was brilliant and while I’m still waiting to get my hands on a bottle of Coke with my name on it, it’s just been brilliant. Apple announced the release of many new upgrades to their products and I’ve not seen nearly as many people upgrade to iPhone as they have the 5s, I actually do not know how I lived without the fingerprint scanner before.

Craig Coke

#ShareaCokeza

I started the year strong, still dropping the weight and very quickly fell ill, but in the hands of the professionals I’m one organ less, but recovering nicely and getting back in shape again. I have gained a significant amount of muscle mass and I’m feeling great. I got a lot of ink, and most importantly started my back piece, which I’m hoping to complete in 2014.

We have watched some of the most amazing TV series this year, everything from Breaking Bad to Walking Dead has people talking and could very well see the revival of live TV. New series such as Ray Donovan, House of Cards, The Blacklist and Mob City have been great additions while we wait for new Game of Thrones and some final seasons of Mad Men and Californication.

Breaking Bad

I’m looking forward to 2014 and hope that it brings us all a whole lot more success, health, happiness and more of the good times.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Nelson Mandela

[youtube id=m6Eq4eoDvB8 mode=normal]

Rest In Peace Madiba!

1918 – 2013

Crafting Digital

Last week the digital industry came together to celebrate the 2013 bookmarks awards and it’s great to see some great work being produced.The focus seems to be integrating campaigns and more around the idea, as it should be. But I feel that there isn’t a very high standard of traditional digital craft.

I went through all the award-winning work on 10 and 5 and there are only a handful of agencies who are really standing out for me. The thing that stood out most is that no one is caring enough about craft. Most of the supporting sites on campaigns aren’t great and simply functional. But there’s no real love for beautiful design, clever code, fast loading mobile friendly sites or any advances in technology. Hardly any of the sites I visited were responsive, reduced in file size or anything resembling the standard of design I have a spent an entire career trying to replicate. The best designed stuff came out of Ogilvy Cape Town, who are a traditional Ad agency, but in my opinion, in the running for the top digital agency too. Not that I’d take anything away from the teams at HelloComputer, Native VML and Quirk who are really coming into their own and crossing that line between traditional digital and integrated full service agencies.

At the end of the day, I totally understand that clients don’t really care about using SVG graphics so that things scale beautifully on retina displays and are tiny in file size, but as the digital industry, we should care, we need to set the standard. If work cannot be crafted by the time it needs to launch, the beauty of digital is that it’s easy enough to polish after the launch and we can always continue to refine our stuff and let’s be honest, if we are going to use it to promote ourselves, then you don’t need a budget signed off to show your work some love.

What I’d like to see from the bookmarks are categories that look at high quality web design and development, best interfaces, mobile apps etc. These need to follow best practices, be light, adaptive and certainly not follow the cooky-cutter format most of them currently have. They also need judges who understand this. While I have a huge amount of respect for the senior representatives from the previous winning agencies, they are not necessarily qualified to be judging work that is technically brilliant as important  as it is aesthetically pleasing.

I like that the bookmarks award individuals in categories like User Experience Designer and Strategist, but what about best interface designer, digital designer, front-end developer and so on.

I feel bad writing a post like this, because I have never entered the bookmarks, I also haven’t been producing as much work over the past few years, but I do believe in craft and I do believe in our industry, so whether I’m producing the work or not, I feel I have a responsibility to motivate the industry to do better work. Yes I’m a kak writer, my rambling here isn’t going to inspire much, but if the lack of gold compared to the huge amount of bronze awards are a sign, the level of work is worse than my writing, with the exception of a handful of talented folk, we have a way to go, so let’s not forget about craft.

Reflecting on 2012

Inspired by the many posts I’ve read today reflecting on 2012, I thought I’d take my inspiration from Robin Sharma who made a list of 50 Business + Life lessons 2012 taught me and make a list of my own.

  1. Empowering others to find their genius is what being a leader is all about
  2. Literally write down your goals if you want a greater chance of achieving them
  3. Treat people on social forums with the same amount of respect as you would to their face
  4. You’re never to old to learn something new, you can teach an old dog, new tricks
  5. Find inspiration in any form you like to motivate you, but get motivated
  6. It’s never too late to get into the best shape of your life
  7. Even if it all starts to sound the same and you fall out of love, keep listening, music is a universally understood language that’s good for the soul
  8. Eat cake!
  9. Cut out fizzy cold drinks, alcohol and processed fruit juices and drink lots of water
  10. Never, say never
  11. Unplug, you cannot spend all of your time connected to technology
  12. Be grateful, make a gratitude list
  13. A slice of ham on a sandwich is not protein, eat more protein
  14. You might grow old, but never grow up
  15. Wireless networking is about one-third the speed of a wired network
  16. You can change your tolerance for how somethings tastes, just give it a good try
  17. We can send a man to the moon, but over 40 years later, traffic lights are still not water proof
  18. We are all brilliant
  19. Always be kind to others
  20. Eat small meals, high in protein and complex carbohydrates, every 2 – 3 hours a day
  21. Believe in Karma, you’ll regret it if you don’t
  22. Don’t wait to be acknowledged by others, stand up, look them in the eye, smile, hold out your hand and say hello
  23. Travel
  24. Try not adapt a victim mentality
  25. Being fit is the new sexy, so do cardio, use weights, stretch and balance
  26. Age is just a number
  27. If you find yourself stuck doing what you do, focus your energy on empowering others to reach their dreams
  28. People move on. Friends move away, people stop talking, colleagues find other jobs. Don’t take it personally, just move on when it’s your time
  29. If you fail today, you can always try again tomorrow
  30. Choose your words wisely, for example, don’t have problems, have challenges
  31. Clean your devices often, there is a mountain of dirt that accumulates on your keyboards, mice and touch screens
  32. Be a wolf, not a sheep
  33. Politics, religion and cellphones have no place at a dinner table
  34. It can snow in Africa
  35. If ‘Gangnam style’ is the biggest sensation of 2012, here’s to better creativity in 2013
  36. Avoid fueling drama, try remain level-headed and so easily influenced by other people’s in-ability to deal with a challenge
  37. Next time you’re afraid of doing something, think of the man free-falling from outer space rushing toward earth at supersonic speeds
  38. Laugh at yourself, it’s okay to make an ass of yourself
  39. Most people work at least one-third of their day, you might as well enjoy what you do
  40. Surround yourself with people who bring out the best in you
  41. Look people in the eye when you say cheers
  42. Skateboarding was probably the last time you were truly happy, it’s never too late to start again
  43. Don’t judge someone just because they sin differently to you
  44. Listen to audio books for rapid reading
  45. Love yourself if you want others to love you
  46. Bicarbonate of soda is some handy powder
  47. You’re not alone
  48. Print out more photos
  49. ‘Banana hammock’ is the safe word
  50. Don’t be a dick!

I guess I’ll leave that to your imagination, yes we all have one. Let’s put this incredible year behind us and let’s have an awesome 2013

Happy New Year!

My current Kindle reads

I thought I’d share a few Kindle books currently on my iPad


Abduzeedo Inspiration Guide for Designers (Voices that matter) – Fabio Sasso
Content Strategy for the Web – Kristina Halvorson
Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to sharpen your design skills – David Sherwin
The Digital Diet: The 4-step plan to break your tech addiction – Daniel Sieberg
Don’t Make Me Think – Steve Krug
The E Myth Revisited – Michael E.Gerber
The Essential Guide to HTML5 – Jeanine Meyer
Flash Mobile – Matthew David
Foundation HTML5 Animation with JavaScript – Billy Lamberta & Keith Peters
Good Strategy / Bad Strategy – Richard Rumelt
HTML5 Guidelines for web developers – Klaus Forster & Bernd Oggt
Mobile Design & Development – Brian Fling
Mobile Web Design for Dummies – Janine Warner & David LaFontaine
ReWork – Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson
Stunning CSS3 – Zoe Mickley Gillenwater
Undercover User Experience Design – Cennydd Bowels & James Box
Untitled – Blaine Hogan
The Wake-Up Call – Jonas Eriksson
Web Form Design: Filling in the blanks – Luke Wroblewski
The 4-Hour Body – Timothy Ferriss
The 4-Hour Work Week – Timothy Ferriss

2012 resolutions need not be a revolution

It sounds like most of the people I know are really charged up and ready to tackle 2012 with the same passion and enthusiasm of a nation in revolt. Before you do anything too radical, might a suggest a more subtle approach to 2012

  • Look at the things you didn’t do it 2012 and ask yourself why you didn’t do them, if they are still important and those that are, how you can do them this time round?
  • Learn from the mistakes you made in 2011.
  • The global economy is a mess, so don’t get too excited about growing anything, keep your overheads low and grow as organically as your market allows.
  • I bet if you took the time to look, 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients, so trim the fat and work smarter, not harder.
  • Today might be the first day back at work, but it’s the perfect time to book a holiday. If you have something rewarding to look forward to, you have something to work towards.
  • Ease into gym, diet, quitting smoking etc, the biggest reason people give up is because they can’t handle going too hard too fast.
  • Don’t get consumed by social media, get a social life away from your multiple devices.
  • Turn your phone off.
  • Simplify your life, throw stuff out, consume less, go to the beach more.

2011 a short look back

This past year has been an interesting one which on the eve of the new year, could sooner be forgotten if it weren’t for some really significant events.

Steve Jobs
Online it must have been the most significant event in history when Steve Jobs passed away on October 5th. He seriously left a huge dent in the universe and I think people are waiting to see the first significant Apple release without the creative genius driving the company.

Facebook Timeline
Love it or hate it, as of the December 22nd, Facebook officially rolled out Timeline. As an early adopter it took me very little time to really start appreciating the life event display of my personal information. While there are some people who aren’t as happy about the changes, personally I look forward to further enhancements and also seeing Timeline used for page profiles.

Google+
New to social media was the much hyped release of Google’s latest social platform Google+ which has been released publicly, but to date is still very much a geek network. Google also rolled out a really significant UI redesign across most of its platforms, which has significantly improved the look and feel and unified many of their online spaces.

Twitter
Twitter redesigned.

Digital Monarchy
Marianna and I decided we were taking the leap from full-time employment and started our own little digital studio. We were originally going to call our company Harakiri, but the timing was too close to the Tsunami which hit Japan, so we settled on Digital Monarchy. We have no plans of taking over the world, we simply want to do good work. While only being in business for 9 months, we have worked on some great brands with some brilliant people.

FWA
I spent my December holiday in 2010 redesigning my personal website, choosing to try my hand at a responsive html5 design, which won me FWA  Mobile Site of the Day on March 16th. Digiguru has now existed for over a decade and will continue to improve while showcasing my ever-increasing portfolio.

2012
With the new year, brings with it new optimism, may your 2012 be full of fun, excitement, success, laughter, good health, peace, love and happiness!

Thank you

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